TheOtherDave comments on Something to Protect - Less Wrong
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Comments (75)
Huh.
Can you clarify exactly why it matters?
That is... I recognize that on a superficial level it feels like it matters, so if you're making a point about how to manipulate human psychology, then I understand that.
OTOH, if you're making an ethical point about the value of life, I don't quite understand why the value of those 400 lives is dependent on how many people there are in... well, in what? The world? The galaxy? The observable universe? The unobservable universe? Other?
Well, if there are only 400 people in the universe, option 1 means you're saving them all and nobody needs die.
But that's a rather silly interpretation. That the option 2 exists obviously means there exist at least 500 people in the universe.
I agree with all of this.